


What to Do With That Heart

by mytimehaspassed



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only when he’s back at the house – with one sneaker, a lost inhaler, and a torn, useless, bloody shirt – that he notices that something is a little off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What to Do With That Heart

**WHAT TO DO WITH THAT HEART**  
GENERATION KILL  
Walt/Ray; Brad/Ray; Ray/Trombley  
 **WARNINGS** : Graphic descriptions of violence; drug use.  
 **NOTES** : As requested by [colbertesque](http://colbertesque.tumblr.com): "A Teen Wolf!AU with Walt as Scott, Ray as Stiles, Brad as Derek, and Nate as Deaton." Of course, this is completely and 100% not a true AU, because Walt is nothing like Scott, Brad is only sort of like Derek, Nate is barely in the picture, and Ray is like the HBO version of Stiles.

  
It’s only when he’s back at the house – with one sneaker, a lost inhaler, and a torn, useless, bloody shirt – that he notices that something is a little off.

***

Walt wouldn’t call it a bite, but that’s what Ray says it is, his nose inches away from the already healing wound on Walt’s side, the indentations faded even more than they were yesterday. Ray sucks in air through his teeth and asks him if he’s seen a doctor yet – pointedly not asking Walt if he’s shown this to his mom, who would totally freak the fuck out – and Walt shakes his head, says, “It doesn’t hurt that much, actually. And it’s weird; it was a lot worse this morning.”

He remembers the struggle in the woods, the – large, hairy – thing that had bitten or scratched him when he tried to run away, and then the release of pressure, the cold air around him, the long run back to his house. He had looked at the wound last night and it had been bloody, raw, almost frightening, but it seemed to be healing quickly enough on its own.

Ray pokes at one mark with his finger and Walt slaps his hand away, pulling his shirt down. “Ow,” Ray says, pouting, and then raises his eyebrows. “That’ll teach you to go jogging in the woods at night without me.”

Walt rolls his eyes and grabs Ray’s beer can, ignoring Ray’s protests, swallowing a good mouthful. The sun that filtered through the bottom of the bleachers had already turned the beer into something hot and undrinkable, but Walt was having a hard time getting a buzz, three empty cans already smashed beside him in the dirt. “I wasn’t jogging,” he says to Ray, who lights a cigarette, blowing smoke in Walt’s face. “I was meeting someone.”

Ray gasps loudly beside him, placing one hand over his heart. “Walter,” he says in a stage whisper, his tone somewhere between shock and disapproval. “How could you? I thought we had something here.”

Walt gives him a look. “Dr. Fick,” he says, undeterred. “I was meeting Dr. Fick.”

“So now you’re into older men?” Ray asks, cupping his hands around Walt’s face. “I’m not enough for you?”

Walt pushes his hands away. “Somebody called him about a stray dog,” he says, swallowing another mouthful of beer. “I was trying to help him catch it, but he never showed up. That was probably what bit me, though.”

“The stray dog?” Ray asks, stealing his beer back for a sip, but leaving one of his hands in Walt’s lap. Ray always got handsy whenever he was drinking, touching and kissing and laying all of his body parts on Walt or whoever else was closest. “I thought you said it was huge.”

“It could have been a wolf,” Walt says, and Ray looks at him as if he’s stupid. “What?”

“Dude,” Ray says. “There are no wolves in California.”

“Really?” Walt shrugs. He holds the hand in his lap, threading his fingers through Ray’s, taking the proffered cigarette and watching Ray watch him smoke.

“I hope you’re up to date on your rabies shots,” Ray says, smiling roguishly, and then leans in to kiss him.

***

Dr. Fick isn’t in the veterinary hospital when Walt goes there after school, but Walt has had keys since he started the job two years ago, so he slips in quietly, turning the closed sign on the door. Walt feeds the caged dogs and cats – ignoring the slight increase in barking, hissing, and rattling cages as he steps into the back room – sweeps up the shed hair on the linoleum floor, refills water dishes, packs away the sterile steel instruments left out in the operating room, and answers all of Ray’s twenty-three texts, before pulling out his chemistry textbook.

It takes him a few moments before he understands what he’s reading. School had been strangely more difficult to manage than usual, the slight twinge in his side, the pull and itch of his healing skin distracting him. The bite – or whatever it is – is almost invisible now, especially when he checks it in the little bathroom mirror, pulling up his shirt and twisting his body, inspecting the oval indentations, far from the gaping wound it had been.

He makes coffee in the little ancient, half-broken pot, but the caffeine seems to have no effect on him, so he pours the remaining cup and a half down the sink. He speeds through chemistry and then English and then calculus, halfheartedly writing down answers on his worksheets, watching the sun set through the windows, feeling the hushed, tidal pull of the moon.

Ray texts him to ask if he wants to come over after his shift, to finish what they started under the bleachers before they were interrupted by the rumble of football practice and the rhythmic chants of the cheerleading squad, but Walt texts back to say that he really should try to get some sleep. He had gotten three, maybe four, hours of sleep the night before, his skin feeling like it was on fire, his muscles straining, contracting, begging to be used.

Ray says, “Fuck u then, I’m going to Trombley’s.” And if it’s to buy some weed or to have sex, Walt isn’t quite sure, but he only texts back a smiley face and a thumbs up, just to be an asshole.

***

The dreams start that night.

They’re wild, savage, the taste of blood and gristle and bone between his lips, under his sharp teeth, between his elongated jaws. He runs into the woods on his hands and feet, the dirt underneath his large, hairy palms sticking to him like a second skin, and he’s happy, exhilarated, running breathlessly around the trees, under limbs, over protruding roots. He wrestles with brush, with thistles and thorns, his breath as white as a cloud, escaping from his snout.

He’s undeniably cruel, tearing into a small, quivering rabbit that takes one unfortunate step towards him, swiping his claws and sinking his teeth into the rabbit’s belly. The blood is warm in his throat, the meat thick and tough, and he ignores the rabbit’s glassy-eyed look, growling low in his throat, content.

He runs and runs and runs, the cool breeze rustling through his tangled, dirty coat, his strong thighs aching from use, his long arms fast underneath him, his claws gripping the ground. He stops at a stream, drinks the cold water, the reflection of the moon rippling in the waves, pulling him in, reminding him of what he belongs to, of what controls the movement of his muscles.

He dips down again, the water close enough to taste, and is almost startled by the fierce, bloody face that meets him.

***

He washes the sheets before his mother even wakes up, hiding the leaves and streaks of dirt and the dark, red, wet patches, watching the circular motion of the washing machine until he falls back asleep, slumped over the dryer.

He doesn’t know how to explain it, how to even begin to connect the dreams to the next morning, when – inevitably – he will wake up with blood underneath his fingernails and the taste of meat in his mouth, crumbling leaves twisted in his hair, his whole body aching. He doesn’t want to think about it, about whatever this bite has done to him, so he catches up on sleep between classes and pretends not to know anything when his mother questions him – awkwardly – about the fourth time he’s cleaned his sheets this week.

Ray asks him if he’s alright, his probing, careful face, and Walt lies and says that he’s just tired. Ray tilts his head, purses his mouth, and if it takes Walt a moment to respond to the next question – a moment of staring unabashedly at Ray’s throat, the throbbing, steady pulse, feeling his teeth sink into the flesh there, tearing, ripping, shaking his jaw back and forth, the warm blood from Ray’s torn jugular spraying him and Ray and the wall beyond – Ray doesn’t notice.

***

It’s a week after the attack that Ray figures it out.

Walt had followed Ray back to his house after school, had lain down on Ray’s bed with one hand over his eyes, the blinding headache that had started around the rush and noise of homeroom still pounding. He had been unable to concentrate all day, unable to shake off the clamor from the next classroom, the next floor, the group of loitering students outside of the gym.

Somewhere inside of him, he knew that it should be impossible to hear conversations happening two hundred feet away, through brick and plaster and concrete, as loudly as if they were right next to him, but he can’t let himself think about it. Can’t let himself contemplate what this means, how this might be connected to his dreams, to the blood he wakes up covered in every morning.

Ray kisses him and then pushes his nose against Walt’s cheek, his fingers snaking up Walt’s chest, beneath his shirt. Walt makes a non-committal sound, his eyes still closed, and Ray lays his mouth against Walt’s ear, whispers, “I know what you are.”

Walt looks at him, holding his breath, still, hearing the rush of blood through his veins, feeling his heartbeat pick up speed. “What?” He says, laughing it off, his insides on fire. “A not even remotely horny teenager?”

Ray’s laugh is throaty, a rush of air from his lips to Walt’s face. “No, I can fix that,” he says, scratching his nails against Walt’s belly, making him shiver. “The other thing, I’m not so sure.”

Walt closes his eyes again, preparing himself, feeling the surge of energy beneath his skin. He can feel his bones start to move, can feel the anger rising up his spine, this thing inside of him that he can’t quite name yet, this thing inside of him that he doesn’t want to be let out. “What are you talking about?”

Ray exhales and Walt can feel the breath on his cheek. He opens his eyes and Ray is looking at him, raising his eyebrows in disapproval. “The attack that happened on a full moon,” he says. “The bite that healed in less than two days, the fact that you could hear every word of the conversation I just had with my dad downstairs. I can’t believe you don’t know what this is.”

Walt makes a low sound in his throat, a low, growling sound, and it’s dangerous, a warning, but Ray doesn’t stop.

“Dude,” Ray says, sliding off the bed to hand him a stack of printed papers sitting neatly by his computer, the ink glaring at Walt under the light. “You’re a fucking werewolf.”

Walt thumbs through the stack, stops on one cartoonishly-drawn sketch of what he guesses a werewolf would look like, reads the words “clinical lycanthropy,” and drops it back down. He can feel the thing inside of him growing stronger, growing angrier, and he shoves the papers off his lap and onto the floor, watches them sail with the movement, flutter down to Ray’s dirty carpet.

Walt looks up at Ray, narrowing his eyes, and it must be so fierce, so vicious, because Ray takes one step back, his hands finding the chair behind him. “What the fuck is this?”

“Walt,” Ray says, his voice wavering between them, unsure. “I know this must be hard, but you can’t ignore the signs.” He picks up one of the papers from the floor, points out a bulleted list – “fierce appetite, long index finger, violent tendencies” – and says, “All of your symptoms combined with the nightmares you’ve been having, it all makes sense.”

The thing inside of him tightens, a coil of energy. “You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.”

Ray is careful now, aware of his movements. “I can help you!” he says, his palms in front of him, careful, careful. “I’ve spent hours researching all of this. I can help you,” he says again, the honest, open expression on his face repulsive to Walt, to the thing inside of him.

Walt stands up, his form menacing in front of Ray, saying, “Werewolves don’t exist.” He grabs his backpack and slings it over his shoulder, his fists opening and closing, itching for a fight. “Just because I got scratched by something in the woods does not mean that I’m going to turn into some kind of monster during the next full moon. Stop trying to invent supernatural creatures to make your life more interesting.”

Ray has this look on his face, a look like maybe he wants to run or cry or say something mean to Walt, to shout at him and call him names, something that he’s done so many times before, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Walt doesn’t ask himself if this is enough, the anger inside of him that’s licking its way out of his mouth, the anger that Ray can sense with every fiber of his being.

“I don’t know what Trombley’s been giving you lately, but you should probably take a break,” Walt says. “It’s clearly been fucking with your head, and I don’t think you can stand any more holes in your brain.”

Ray swallows – one delicious dip of his throat, the pulse that Walt can feel from across the room, the flesh that Walt wants to sink his teeth into – and makes a choking sound. He doesn’t open his mouth, and Walt knows that if he did, if he said something, it would be in this hurt, angry tone, and it would sound so desperate to Walt, so vulnerable, that Walt would not be able to stop himself, to stop this thing inside of him.

The thing inside of Walt speaks, and it tells him that it wants to sink its fingernails into Ray’s mouth, tear the quivering lips right off his face, kiss what’s left, its teeth sharp and blood red.

“Call me when you’re sober,” Walt says instead, walking out the door.

***

In his dreams, he kills.

***

He skips class for the next few weeks, quietly checking into homeroom before leaving at the first bell, walking the long route home and slipping into bed. He doesn’t dream of the – he doesn’t want to say wolf, if only because he doesn’t want to give Ray the satisfaction – thing inside of him, not during the day, so he’s been staying up all night, feigning sleep only when his mother comes to check on him.

At night, he plays games on his phone and watches Netflix and reads library books, his eyes swollen and heavy as he washes down stimulants with Red Bull. His fingers itch to text Ray, who stays up most nights, running on black cups of coffee and a handful of pills that Trombley slips him in the hallways, Trombley’s palm shockingly pink against Ray’s pale skin, Trombley flashing a quick, devious smile, and Ray looking small and worthless and in need of a fix.

He wants to tell Ray about his dreams – really about his dreams, how vivid they are, how real they are, and then the next morning, when he wakes up with the taste of meat in his mouth and blood on his sheets – he wants to tell Ray about what’s happening to him, this anger, this hunger, but every time he thinks about him, every time he imagines Ray’s face, he sees himself tearing into Ray’s bared throat, warm, open, presented just for him. His hands start to shake and this surge of something, something grotesque, goes through him like a ghost.

There’s something dangerous growing inside of him, something ready to be let out. Walt opens his bedroom window, his hands gripping the sill tight as he peers outside, looking up to the sky.

The moon is almost full.

***

If Dr. Fick has noticed that Walt is any different, he doesn’t say anything. He watches Walt carefully remove a pair of kittens from one cage, cradling them gently to his chest, and asks him if school is going well. Walt lies and says yes, of course, carrying the kittens to a temporary cage on the other side of the room.

Dr. Fick crosses his arms, says, “Ray was in here the other day looking for you. He said that you had gotten some sort of bite.”

Walt, with his back to Dr. Fick, feels the anger ripple through him. He catches the growl that starts in his throat, the kittens blinking up at him, mewling slightly. “It was nothing,” he says, “Just a scratch.” He removes the soiled towels and water bowl from the kittens’ cage, pointedly not looking at the other man.

Dr. Fick says, “I can take a look at it if you want me to.” Walt hears him rustling with his tools. “What scratched you?”

“It,” he starts, and then sheepishly looks up. “I’m not sure,” he says. He watches Dr. Fick, watches his face reveal nothing, no judgment, no curiosities. “It’s fine now, though, there’s not even a scar.”

Dr. Fick nods, one corner of his mouth lifting. “That’s good. Can’t have been all that bad then, right?” He turns away, his voice low in the space between them. “I mean, you’re still alive.”

“Right,” Walt says. And then again, as if to reassure himself.

***

Ray texts him the night before the full moon, saying, “U’re a dick, but I found someone u should meet.”

Walt thinks about not texting back, one swallow away from finishing his third Red Bull, his highlighter poised over a worn copy of The Catcher in the Rye – school had finally caught on to him, and his mother had sworn that she would kill him herself if he didn’t go back, so he did what he could, taking a few quick naps between classes and on the bus home, pretending that this is anything close to enough – but, ultimately, his curiosity wins, and he asks him what type of person that would be.

There’s a moment that Walt doesn’t think Ray will answer him, a long moment that he watches the light from the moon play over his floor, his shades blowing open with the breeze, the light creeping across his floor, growing, and then subsiding once more. He thinks about what might happen tomorrow night, what his bite might mean when the moon is full and over him, controlling every muscle and tendon and bone. He thinks about the anger, the hunger, and he thinks about where he could go if – something – does happen, if he starts to turn.

Somewhere away from people, away from – Christ – his mother, his friends. Somewhere where he could never hurt anyone.

His phone makes a sound, and he glances down at Ray’s text.

“A real live werewolf.”

***

They meet out in the woods, near the old abandoned house that stands out like an eyesore, a well-worn path winding its way from the front door to the utility road. The house had clearly been through some rough patches, its shell black and burnt, the insides creaking and groaning whenever Ray and Walt had gone there to explore as children, carelessly stepping over downed support beams, edging around the giant holes in the hardwood floors.

Ray had met him in town, his obnoxious sunglasses high on his nose, and had barely said anything before they took off for the woods. Walt glances at him now, Ray’s arms crossed over his chest, and thinks that he should say something, anything to ease the tension between them. He thinks of saying sorry and can’t quite form the words with his mouth.

“He should be here soon,” Ray says suddenly, looking at his watch.

Walt coughs once, but Ray doesn’t look at him. “What…who is he?”

Ray opens his mouth, but Walt beats him to it. “And, please, don’t say werewolf.”

Ray finally looks at him, his sunglasses hiding his eyes, but the rest of his face is tight, annoyed. “His name is Brad,” he says. “He should know what you’re going through right now. And what might happen tonight.”

Walt swallows. “Thank you.”

He wants to say, “I’m sorry this thing has come to between us.”

He wants to kill Ray where he stands, biting each of Ray’s white-knuckled fingers off one by one.

Ray’s face eases, and it looks like he wants to say something, something to connect them again, but they both hear the sound of footsteps. The man walking towards them is tall, blonde, and utterly gorgeous. Walt watches Ray’s mouth turn up into a smile and he can tell that there’s something here that he’s missing, something he should have known if he didn’t have this, this wild thing inside of him.

“You must be Walt,” Brad says, and Walt nods. He feels strangely attracted to him, like he’s familiar with every part of Brad, some sort of animal magnetism that is pulling them together and maybe, maybe, Walt is finally ready to believe. “Ray’s told me a lot about you.”

Walt says, “Really? He’s told me nothing about you. Except for, well…”

One corner of Brad’s mouth lifts in what could be an almost reassuring smile. Then he looks up into the sky, and Walt feels that pull in his chest, that pull of the moon that’s itching his skin, his bones. “We should hurry. There are a lot of things we need to do before tonight.”

***

Brad had lived in the old house before it had burned down, his family dying, screaming, burning inside. He tells this to Walt in a calm, clinical manner as he unlocks the chains shackled to the basement wall, the thick cement encasing the metal. Walt swallows, tastes something like cooked meat inside his mouth, the thing – wolf, he says, wolf, wolf, wolf – inside of him growling, hungry.

Ray paces the little room back and forth, nervously, watching Walt watch Brad.

“You’re not actually chaining me to the wall, are you?” Walt asks, feeling the swell of anger inside, the itch to run upstairs, to run out the door and never look back, stretching, growing, changing under the full moon. “I mean, Ray might be used to some kinky shit but,” he trails off with a forced laugh.

Ray stops, looks at him, and then back at Brad, his bottom lip bleeding under the gnaw of his teeth. “Maybe this isn’t the best idea,” he says, his voice wavering. Walt can tell that he’s thinking about him, about them, about their friendship and how maybe, just maybe, he could be wrong about this whole thing, he could have finally let his imagination run off with him, how he could be forcing the separation between the two, Walt finally leaving after this pain, this humiliation, this torment.

Ray’s bottom lip is blood red and Walt wants to taste it so badly.

Brad moves over to Ray in two, long strides. His palm finds Ray’s back, all five of his fingers splayed there, consuming his skin, and he says, his voice low, “We can’t take the chance.” It’s so intimate, so reassuring, that – at first – Walt can’t place where the words are coming from.

And then –

Oh, Walt thinks, staring at Brad’s hand. Oh, oh, oh, and the – WOLF, he thinks, GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING WOLF – starts to pull at him, to tear him up, wanting, needing to claim Ray for his own, to rip apart Brad’s hand with its claws, to drink the blood from the open wounds, celebrating through a loud, vocal howl at the moon. He wants to eat them both up, Brad and his muscular, chiseled features and Ray and his petite, sinewy body. He wants to bathe in their fucking blood.

He growls loudly, startling himself.

Brad looks at him sharply and says, his voice nothing short of a snarl, fierce even to Walt’s ears, “Walt, if you don’t want to kill everyone, you need to get back against that wall right now.”

Walt moves slowly backwards, partly from the shock of Brad’s stern voice, partly because of the terror on Ray’s face, Ray moving back into Brad’s hand, scared, Ray that used to be Walt’s, Ray, Ray, Ray. Walt feels the shock melt into fury again, the rage of this indiscretion, of Brad touching Ray, of Brad kissing Ray, of Brad claiming the parts of Ray that had once been Walt’s.

Brad says, “Fuck, Walt, I need you to listen to me. You’re going to feel the pull of the moon and it’s going to be hard, but you need to stay human for right now, okay? You don’t want to hurt anyone, do you? You don’t want to hurt Ray, right?” He takes one step towards Walt and Walt lets out another menacing growl, this one low in his throat, deep, and Ray grips Brad’s shirt, his fingers bloodless.

Ray says, “Walt, please,” his voice quivering, reminiscent of the boy Walt used to know, the Ray he grew up with, the Ray he loves. And again, “Please.”

Walt feels the surge of, of anger or hurt or whatever again, feels the surge of the wolf clawing its way out of his body, up his spine and out his throat. He looks at Ray, at Brad, and he wants to stop, to push this thing back down again, to quell this rage, afraid of what this wolf will do once it’s loose, afraid that it will be more than just rabbits under his jaws, more than just the small, skittering animals in the forest. He’s afraid that Brad will lose the fight with him, with this raging beast, that Ray will never be able to outrun him, his long arms and strong thighs and vicious teeth, that they will both do more than quench this thirst for blood.

He feels the cry that’s steady in his chest, his frustration, his inability to stop any of this, the pull too strong, the moon wide and rising above all of them. He turns to Ray to say, “Help me,” to say, “Help me stop, please,” to say, “I love you,” but is cut off by his own scream.

***

He changes.

***

It’s agony, tremendous pain in every part of his body, the bones snapping and cracking and reshaping into a different animal, a stronger, more vicious animal. He sees Brad and Ray through golden eyes, sees Brad telling Ray to run, to fucking run, Brad’s claws lengthening, and he growls, howls, his mouth elongated, his jaws tightened, sharp.

Brad snorts once, shedding his own skin with ease, and Walt looks at him and at the spot that Ray occupied only moments before, smelling Ray’s ascent upstairs, smelling the path he makes as he runs. He wants so badly to run after him, to sink his fangs into Ray’s pale neck, but Brad is trying to keep his attention, moving and pacing in front of the door. Walt growls once more, and Brad returns it, scratching at the dirt floor, huffing.

Brad is certainly older, bigger, but Walt has venom in his veins, a want, a need to catch Ray and ensure that there is nothing left when he’s finished. He moves and Brad swipes a claw at him, catching him on the forearm. Walt howls and Brad looks triumphant until Walt launches himself at him, tumbling with his heavy form, rolling and scratching at the dirt below.

He bites and claws and Brad gives it back to him and it looks like Brad is winning, taking Walt’s neck in his mouth, between his jaws, pressing down enough to hurt, but not enough to kill, when Walt lands a particularly sharp blow, Brad thrown off him and landing on the floor with a sickening crack. Brad whimpers and is still and it’s the chance that Walt needs, rushing through the door and up the stairs at out, into the night, under the moon, his paws free on the ground.

He runs and runs and easily catches up to Ray’s sweating, panting form, stalking him silently for a minute before getting close, growling from somewhere in the brush. Ray stops, shock still, and looks around him. “Brad?” he whispers, his hands finding a tree behind him, his fingernails scrabbling at the bark. “Brad?” he says again.

Walt wants to laugh, the exhilaration of the chase and the trapping of his prey, and his claws scratch at the ground, an unmistakable sound that has Ray trembling, afraid. Ray starts to cry, saying, “Walt? Walt, please. Walt, baby,” and there’s something in his tone, something he says that has Walt pausing for just one moment – long enough that the human inside him, the person, Walt, screams for the wolf to stop, screams for his best friend, for the life of the person he loves the most – before he pounces.

Ray sees him coming and opens his mouth to yell, Walt’s claws long and white and ready to tear, but before he makes the impact, before he can rip Ray’s mouth from his face, before he can finally, finally kill, everything goes dark.

***

When Walt wakes up, he’s naked.

Ray – beautiful, ALIVE Ray – has an arm around his torso, his nose cold against Walt’s shoulder, a string of drool attaching them. He’s snoring in his sleep, a loud, snuffling sound that Walt has woken up to so many times before, always annoyed, but now elated, overjoyed, because that sound means that Ray is alive, that Walt has woken up from the weird, ethereal dream.

He slowly extricates himself from Ray’s grasp and looks around, cataloguing the dirt floor of the basement, the cement wall, and it’s then that he feels the cold metal of the chain around his wrist. “Fuck,” he says, tugging at the chain, feeling no give whatsoever. His wrist feels numb, achey, but so does his whole body.

“We had to leave you like that,” a voice says behind him, and Walt turns to find Dr. Fick standing by the doorway, his hands in his pockets. Walt makes an incomprehensible noise and suddenly feels immodest, tucking himself behind Ray, trying to cover his naked body. “After I hit you with the tranquilizer, we wanted to make sure that you were contained.”

Dr. Fick offers a smile, and nods to Ray’s sleeping form. “He wouldn’t leave your side, even when we told him it wasn’t safe.”

“What,” Walt starts, and his voice is so rough, so raw, that he has to cough and try again. “What are you doing here?” he croaks.

“Brad called me,” Dr. Fick explains, shrugging. “He felt that it would be much easier to handle you if I was there. Unfortunately, I was almost too late. I didn’t think you were supposed to change yet, but I guess my estimation was a little off.”

Walt looks down at Ray again, remembers the attempted slaughter, and feels the swell of tears in his eyes, the icy grip of pain inside of him.

“It will get easier,” Dr. Fick says, leaning down so that he can look into Walt’s eyes. “The first change is always the hardest, but – believe me – you will stop wanting to kill everybody in sight. With Brad’s training, you might even be able to suppress your urge to change.”

“How do you know all of this?” Walt asks, his fingers reaching for Ray’s clothes, burying themselves in the cloth there, just above his heart, just to reassure himself that Ray is still alive, still breathing.

Dr. Fick smiles. “I’ve been around a lot longer than you,” he says. “And I haven’t always been a vet.”

Brad appears in the doorway, his eyes sharp on Walt’s fingers, his mouth displeased. “We can’t stay here all day, someone is bound to notice.” He looks rough around the edges, almost bruised, although there are no actual marks, and Walt remembered their fight from the night before, wincing.

Brad notices and swallows, lets Dr. Fick pass him and start up the stairs. “You can’t beat yourself up,” he says to Walt after a moment. “If you remember everyone that you almost kill – every thought the wolf has – you won’t ever be able to live your life.”

Walt coughs, feels Ray stirring beneath him. “How am I supposed to live with this, with this –“ he can’t even say it.

Brad lifts up one corner of his mouth, but his eyes are sad, sadder than Walt’s ever seen. “You just do,” he says, and shrugs. “Finding someone who loves you is a start,” he gestures to Ray, Ray’s sloped, gentle features in Walt’s lap, and it’s almost a reluctant offer.

Walt brushes Ray’s hair away from his forehead, his fingers leaving marks, dirt from the floor, his fingernails bloody and bitten down. Ray has always been there for him, has always loved him, and Walt guesses that, maybe, someday, that could be enough.

When he looks back up, Brad’s gone.

He sighs, his fingers still on Ray’s skin, letting Ray’s warmth hold him together for one, two, three more minutes.

***

He lives.  



End file.
